


The rediscovery of horses

by Commander_salad_bar (Amaya_Skylark)



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Crack, Cryptids, Gen, Halloween 2020, Horses, OCs - Freeform, Original Characters - Freeform, and writing practise, but the end product is pretty alright, for once i dont have much to say in the tags, i had zero idea where i was going with this while writing, its just horses, probaby - Freeform, prompt cryptids, that i enjoyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27214936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaya_Skylark/pseuds/Commander_salad_bar
Summary: Halloween 2020 prompt 1: cryptidsSo of course I went with the idea of horses as a cryptid listen they ride raptors and horses are god damn freaky have you ever heard the noise an angry horse makes? no? its weird.Listen this is mostly writing practise so I have no idea what to put here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Relationships: None
Kudos: 3





	The rediscovery of horses

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIdGCpsuog you can listen to the glorious sounds of horses being mad at each other here.

Evening on the ranch is quiet - with the skyscales fed and cared for the only sounds filtering through the kitchen were the soft clicks of a knife on a chopping board as Amadaria prepared dinner and the faint, nearly imperceptible hum of Emerics data pad. The gentle scene washed in the swaying golden light of sunset where it filtered through the trees.

“THERE’S A HORSE AT THE WATERFALL.” Cheza shrieks as she crashes through the door, her momentum nearly sending her head over heels and saving her from the knife that goes sailing out the open door around where her head was a moment before.

The kitchen pauses any previous activity save for Cheza panting furiously for breath, Amadaria quickly retracting her arm back down before clearing her throat,

“A horse, Cheza?”

The young sylvari bobbles her head, desperation and excitement beaming from her face and posture as she waves her arms erratically out the door,  
“It has to be! It looks like a centaur but it has no arms! Just a big, long face and these weird teeth!” she says, putting her hands up in front of her face, parallel to each other with wrists close to her mouth and fingers pointing outwards before wiggling them back and forth in what apparently approximate teeth to her? Amadaria wasn’t sure but knew better than to ask why exactly that meant teeth or it’d be several more hours before they got back to the possible horse sighting.

“Ah, I thought horses were extinct? Or so close to that they may as well have been, Are you sure you didn't see some kind of monstrous deer?” Emeric suggests gently, “we are after all in melandru’s domain, there are a few massive versions of animals here and horses haven't been sighted in hundreds of years at the least.”

“No way! This thing didn’t look anything like a deer, not even like Hellal! It’s legs were way too thick, and it’s tail was this big, long thing! Like human hair instead of like a deer's cute little tail, and it’s hooves were wrong and so was it’s face! There’s no way it was anything but a horse,” Cheza paused then as a new idea visibly crossed her mind, hands fisting by her chest in excitement, her eyes and face literally lighting up like a lightbulb with her bright, white glow, “or maybe, a new species?!” 

“A horse would be more likely, it even sounds like you got a good look at it” Amadaria interrupts, deciding to put that idea to rest before it could take hold and leave the younger disappointed. Switching her attention to Emeric before continuing. “As you say this is the living section of Dragonfall and if there's anywhere a horse is going to be found it’s in the ruins of the human nature God domain.” she switches her attention back to Cheza then, raising the ridge of one ‘eyebrow’ “The real question is whether it was alive or not.” 

The youngest pauses, face scrunching as she recalls. Her glow dimming slightly as she thought,  
“I think so,” she says finally, “It wasn’t glowing or giving off that mist like the guardians here do, but sometimes I think things here get confused on whether they’re dead or not too.”

Amadaria nods, clapping her hands together and drying them off on a towel,  
“Well then, sounds like we have a new sighting to find!”

Chezas glow and expression flicks right back up to megawatt standards.

\---

Crouched in the trees atop their skyscales, Cheza visibly vibrating with excitement atop her shimmerwing while Emeric clung to Amadarias back as if the slightest shift would send him plummeting to his death at the end of the maybe fifteen foot fall, Amadaria has to admit that Cheza does, in fact, seem to have found a horse. Something no one had managed in either the campaign against Kralkatorrik nor in the intervening near year of the island being studied and inhabited.

There at the edge of the waterfall pool, drinking from the water and paying absolutely zero attention to the three people crouched on dragons fifty feet away from it stood a truly bizarre looking creature.  
Long, thick legs with chunky cowlike hooves stretched almost six feet leading into a body covered in short gleaming chestnut fur stretched over an almost ridiculous amount of muscle. Sure enough it’s tail was a swath of overlong but graceful hair, flicking back and forth lazily at nothing.  
The horse’s strangest feature however had to be on the front. Amadaria was old enough for most of her visions of The Dream to have come and gone, leaving it a smear of memory in her mind slowly losing its clarity, with Ventari more of a memory imprint than properly remembered.  
She had, however, seen more than enough centaur in her waking life to find the lack of torso jutting from the creatures front to be particularly jarring.  
Instead its wide neck arched down into an oblong head with pointed ears and the truly impressive but blunt teeth Cheza had tried to imitate in the kitchen. It’s eyes were wide, dark and shining. Much like a deer or a goat they popped bulbously out to either side of it’s head.

“Should we try and catch it?” Cheza hissed, the horses ear flicking in their direction before it went back to ignoring them.

“Maybe we should wait and see if it has a herd?” Emeric suggested, daring to lean forward to get an inches closer look.

“We might lose it. Go for catch and release and we’ll get a tracking tag on it. That way we can follow it’s movements too.” she tapped Emerics hands and shifted so he could let her go, a practised shuffle leaving him with the reigns in hands and Amadaria on the branches of the tree. A shimmer of light later her crystalline wings were half furled and ready for take off. 

“Herd it towards the roots and I'll see if I can get on it’s back for implanting the chip.”

The other two nod and launch, the horse suddenly paying attention as the two dragons sweep around the outer edges of the pond and cut off it’s escape. Emeric hovering low to the ground and stopping it retreating as Cheza sped in to herd it forward.  
The horse took off like a shot with a sound not unlike a raptor - sprinting head long at the tree but not without trying to force Cheza from the sky, rearing and swerving like it wanted to catch the skyscales wings in it’s teeth or under its hooves and wasn’t picky which.

Quicker than she would have thought the three are near enough to Amadaria for her to leap off onto it as it sprints past the roots of her tree, the creature coming to a sudden stop with a spray of water and leaping into the air as soon as her arms get around its neck. Bucking, writhing and rearing the creature does its absolute best to get her off and - if the way its eyes were rolling in fury were any indication - trample her to death under its hooves.

Thankfully the tracking gun is an easy application, Amadaria shimmies up it’s back and snags the ear in the pincers of the gun, a quick button later and the horse is tagged with the small blinking light that indicates an active tracking signal.

The horse lets out another growl like snort at deafening volume and slams itself onto all fours, getting ready to buck. Using it to her advantage Amadaria uses the extra force to boost herself into the air just a bit higher than a normal take off would allow and soars up out of the furious creatures reach.  
The animal stomped and reared at her where she hovered a good forty feet above it, giving off one last truly atrocious noise before galloping off as Cheza and Emeric circled back around to meet her on the ground.

Her feet thumping down on landing nearly covering up the sound of her heart in her ears, exhilaration racing through her veins as Amadaria meets the others excited grins with a buoyant beam of her own,  
“I think we can call that a success!” she laughed.  
Cheza cheered as Emeric beamed his own proud smile down at Amadaria.  
“How does it feel to be the first person to ride a horse in the last few hundred years?” he asked.  
Another giddy laugh bubbled out of her, unstoppable in her mirth,  
“Probably about as good as it feels to be the first to see one! I can’t wait to see the looks the other Priory members will have when they hear about this!” She grins up at Cheza, “You have first sight so you get final say on the name of the paper, any thoughts?”

Two weeks later the first chapter of “The Shrieking Menace - an account of the rediscovery of horses by Cheza, Amadaria and Emeric” rolls out to datapads across the continent, resulting in renewed clamour for research opportunities on the island and a spike of funding from quite a few human nobles.

**Author's Note:**

> much like beating a poor horse you can find my tumblr at saladbarselectionmenu


End file.
